During an investor call on Tuesday, SpaceX announced its plans to build a mobile service network and enter the US market. This will put SpaceX in direct competition with AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon.
SpaceX recently acquired 65 MHz wireless spectrum licenses from EchoStar for $19.6 billion, which will help the company expand its mobile services. And since the spectrum purchased from EchoStar has terrestrial components, “the rocket company” plans to use it to build a network and offer a true mobile service.
Maybe SpaceX wants to pair its Starlink network with a ground-based infrastructure to potentially offer unrivaled coverage across the US.
Following the news, Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile shares fell between 2.2% and 4%, but some analysts remain somewhat skeptical of SpaceX’s ambitions, at least for now.
They point out that SpaceX will find it extremely hard to take the same route as its competitors that have been building their infrastructure for the last 30 years. This means it will take decades of solid investment before SpaceX can take a significant chunk of the market in the US. Unless, of course, Elon Musk’s company acquires an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) agreement with one of the existing network providers.
However, it looks like SpaceX has other plans. Company officials don’t disclose any plan details, but they assure their investors that they have “great and new ideas” of how to do that.